Corycium ingeanum E.G.H.Oliv., S. African J. Bot. 52: 256 (1986).
Homotypic Names:
Pterygodium ingeanum (E.G.H.Oliv.) J.C.Manning & Goldblatt, Strelitzia 29: 812 (2012).
Description:
An erect glabrous herb up to 200 mm tall with a fairly stout leafy stem. Leaves 7-8, erect - spreading, 25 - 100 x 1421 mm, elongate, lanceolate, acuminate, broadly sheathing at the base, canaliculate, the upper leaves gradually smaller and appressed. Inflorescence loosely to fairly densely 23 - 33-flowered, c. 80 mm long and 25-30 mm across; flowers erect - spreading, but facing slightly downwards; bracts erect 12-14 x 11 -12 mm, very broadly ovate, subacute, minutely papillose ciliate, pale greenish-cream with red margins and membraneous apex, distinctly veined, becoming dried and brown. Lateral sepals anticous, completely united (or slightly free) into a broadly elliptic or suborbicular deflexed spreading blade 7-8x6 mm, emarginate, margins involute, membraneous, brownish purple-tipped. Odd sepal dorsal, oblong from a narrow base, deeply canaliculate, 9x4 mm but appearing only 2 mm broad, arched forwards over the column, obtuse with an incurved apex, the margins folded inwards over and adhering to the petals, yellow soon turning membraneous brown. Petals c. 10 mm long and 8 mm broad, at first forming an ovate to broadly ovate mouth to the flower with a narrow apical portion, soon becoming broadly oblate, yellow with reddish to black spreading tips, each petal forming a short pouch • posteriorly. Lip unguiculate, ascending and adnate to the column, limb 3 X 1,5 mm, fleshy and bright green, arched forwards and downwards beyond the mouth of the flower in a semicircular arc terminating in a much thinner bilobed cuneate blade 3,5-4 x 5 mm, lobes 22,5 mm long spreading laterally, obtuse fimbriate, sometimes with a very small third lobe between them. Lip appendage 5-6 mm long, fleshy bilobed, horn-like; lobes subulate, arched backwards inside the flower and slightly divergent, each ending in a pouch of the petals. Rostellum arms short, 1,5 mm long, with the pollinia parallel to the axis of the flower and close to the column; stigmatic surfaces large, ellipsoid cushionlike, posterior to the column and perpendicular to the axis of the inflorescence; an additional small tongue-like appendage c. 1 mm long arising adaxially from the column between and just above the stigmatic cushions and just appearing in the joint of the two lip appendages.
Etymology:
The species is named after my wife with whom I collected the species and who made the accompanying drawings.
Habitat:
This species is known only from the northern end of the escarpment north-west of Nieuwoudtville where it appears to be confined to sandy clayey soil in open ground between small shrubs of the renosterbos, Elytropappus rhinocerotis (L.f.) Less., and a Lycium sp. Here it grows in arid conditions just beyond the northern extension of the fynbos vegetation of the escarpment where the rainfall, up to 400 mm per annum, occurs mainly during the winter months, April to September.
Phenology:
Flowering in September.
Distribution:
Cape Prov. (Bokkeveld Plateau)
References:
Orchids of Southern Africa Linder & Kurzweil 1999; The Cape Orchids Vol 2 Liltved & Johnson 2012; A new species of orchid from the north-western Cape by E.G.H. Oliver, Botanical Research Institute, Department of Agriculture and Water Supply, Pretoria; POWO (2022). "Plants of the World Online. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet; http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/ Retrieved 28 November 2022."
Images:
Click on each image to see a larger version.